Police believe the two perpetrators of the anti-Semitic attack on Sydney’s Bodai Beach were trained in Australia before committing the December 14 massacre that left 15 people dead, according to documents revealed today.
According to the filing, a video was found on a mobile phone in which Sajid and Navid Akram, the father and son who carried out the attack, are shown sitting in front of an Islamic State banner, reciting Quranic verses and lambasting “Zionists.
Meanwhile, the wounded attacker, son Navid, was transferred from the hospital where he was being treated to a prison, according to police. The father, Sajid, was killed on the spot.
The two men had “reconnoitered” repeatedly on the beach a few days before the massacre.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi today called for support from all parties in parliament to introduce legislation to provide for aggravating circumstances for “hate speech” and other measures on the issue.
“We will not let terrorists inspired by the Islamic State group win. We will not let them divide our society and we will overcome this ordeal together,” Albanesi told reporters.
The Labour prime minister described the Bodai attack as a “terrorist anti-Semitic act” committed by men inspired by an “ideology of hate” and motivated by the “ideology of Islamic State”.
Two IS banners and improvised explosive devices were found in a vehicle registered in the son’s name near the beach, police said after the attack.
The government of New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital, has already today unveiled what it described as “the most stringent firearms reforms across the country” since the worst massacre in the Oceania continent in nearly 30 years.
The number of guns each resident will be allowed to own will be reduced to four. However, exceptions are planned, particularly for farmers in the vast country, who will be allowed to own up to ten.
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